Thursday, April 28, 2005

Magpie Watch

Blogging has been light lately, what with my time being taken up by real writing assignments, being sick, and spooning. I'd apologize, but that would suggest that having Galley Slaves content in your life matters to you--and you and I both know that it doesn't. We are not children; this farce does not become us.

Anyway, Mickey Kaus catches Andrew Sullivan in a compromising "Magpie" situation, where Kaus wrote something and Sullivan parroted it, as if it were his own thoughts, on TV. I would remind Kaus and readers that this isn't the first time.

In February, Sullivan wrote a long piece about iPods that was clearly cribbed, in conceit, if not in execution, from Christine Rosen's long essay on the subject in The New Atlantis. Sullivan gave Rosen not even a dollop of credit in passing.

None of this is plagiarism, exactly. And Sullivan isn't violating the letter of any journalistic law. But it is the sort of thing that tends to catch up with you eventually. Don't be surprised if Sullivan eventually gets caught out for his magpieing.

5 comments:

it's actually kinda sad. Back in 02 or 03 Hugh Hewitt wrote a Daily Standard piece about influential blogs and the role they would play in the 04 election. If memory serves, he mentioned Sullivan as perhaps the most influential blogger. From that point Sullivan moved steadily to the left to where he is today, a bookmark on every lefty's firefox sidebar. In the process Sullivan has managed to insult just about every blogger who at one point or another supported and promoted Sullivan's website. I'm of the opinion that something happened to Sullivan in his personal life that has influenced his move to the left, other than the gay marriage issue, that the public is not privy to. If I were a betting man, I'd guess that his recreational drug use is no longer recreational and illegal substances now severely cloud his judgement.